Need
by PandaFire McMango
Summary: Maureen finds Collins in the hospital while they wait for news about Angel. She tries to talk to him...but Collins can't deal. MaureenCollins bestfriendship fic, so be prepared. rated for language. be nice, this is rather strange. oneshot.


**A/N: ** Maureen/Collins best friend fic! I love these two like that, they just seem perfect for it. Anways, very angsty and sort of vague about Angel and the details of her problems...but it's a Maureen/Collins moment. And that's fun to write. (ahem: I wrote this at 4:05 a.m. Just thought you might want to know).

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"Collins! What the hell—we've been looking everywhere for you," Maureen exclaimed, standing with her hands on her hips in front of Collins. He was sitting in a plastic hospital chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands locked together. The hospital staff flowed past him without taking notice of either of them. It was like they were invisible; as though the grunge of the East Village had created a bubble of opaque plastic around them.

"Did you hear me?" Maureen asked, frowning down at him. He didn't look at her, only stared down at his hands. She thrust one hip to the side and let the other arm dangle down her side: the classic bossy-Maureen position. It was strangely comforting to adopt the familiar pose. It made the total unreality of the situation—the total unreality of the surroundings, the circumstances, the possible outcomes—a little easier to accept. "I said we've been looking for you. Mark and Roger thought you left, Mimi's freaking out, and Joanne is—"

"I heard you," Collins said softly. Maureen stumbled mentally; she had been preparing a small rant. Trying to get back on track, she shrugged and rocked her hips to the other side.

"Okay then…well then, come on back and sit in the waiting room with us. It's been ages and the doctor said it was going to be a while longer before we get any news about how she's doing. And you can't just sit here alone, that's a seriously stupid thing to do. We need to pull together right now. We all need to suck it up and wait until there's something we can actually do to help Angel instead of just sitting there like little kids—"

"Maureen, for the love of God, shut up."

She wasn't quite sure she'd heard him right. His head was still bowed and his hands were still clasped, almost as though he were praying. But as Maureen stared down at Collins, she saw that he was shaking; very slightly and all over, his entire body shivering with something like pain. His knuckles were white, and the tendons in his wrists stood out as he tightened his grip.

"Wh…what?" she said thickly. And now Collins looked up at her. All of a sudden, she was locked in his gaze, her eyes unable to tear themselves away from the emptiness in his. Very slowly, still holding eye contact, Maureen sat down in the chair to his immediate right. He turned his head to look at her; his neck practically snapped, it was so stiff. She gripped the thin plastic armrests, bracing herself against the intensity of his eyes.

"Collins…" she whispered. But he cut her off with a sharp shake of his head.

"Don't talk. If you have to literally bite your tongue, do it; but just don't talk. You can't talk to me, because I can't handle it. I can't handle hearing you right now, I can't handle hearing anything. I can't handle anything." There was brightness to his gaze now, the glisten of tears that were already too frozen to fall. Maureen didn't speak or move; she barely breathed.

"You can't talk right now because I need you," he went on, words falling like stones from his lips. There was a tiny tremble to his voice in the last few words. Collins paused and took a breath, holding it in for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was steady. "I need you, all of you, and at this moment I need you the most. I need you because I am sitting here, trying not to hear or see or fucking blink…I am sitting here and I don't know if I'm going to be able to stand up again without knowing about Angel. I can't stand up without knowing if the last time I kissed her was really the last time…if anything I ever did with her was the last time we'll ever do that thing together again. I need you to keep me from thinking about the fact that I just saw her collapse, because if I think about it…" he said jerkily, unable to go on. Maureen felt numb; her brain seemed to have gone to sleep without taking the rest of her body with it. Collins was looking at her with a hurt that didn't compute; it was too strong and too real, it was too painful for Maureen to understand.

"I need you," he said again suddenly. The tremble was back in his voice, and this time he didn't get rid of it. "I need you and you are my friend, my best friend…I need you to keep me from thinking. I need you to make me stop seeing and hearing and blinking…and I need you to do it without talking, because I can't handle it. I can't…handle…no…"

And then, finally breaking the eye contact they had held since he first looked at her, Collins let out a dry sob and bowed his head again, stiffening every muscle in his body as he fought against the thoughts crowding his mind. Maureen watched as he struggled; she watched as her best friend did all he could to keep from weeping. She watched…silently.

Collins' knee felt like stone as she slid one hand over it, her fingers gripping the denim fabric. But his hand was surprisingly soft in comparison when she reached out and tangled the fingers of her other hand with his. Maureen could hear his ragged breath as he absorbed her touch; then she felt his fingers tighten around hers as he covered his face with his free hand. She sat there, touching his knee and holding his hand, while Collins grieved. Angel was still alive, as far as they knew…but he wasn't grieving over her death.

He was grieving over the end of their time together; the bliss of living on the streets of New York with the love of your life and not caring about what happened tomorrow or the next day…but just existing. He was grieving over the end of that existence. He was grieving over the beginning of endings.

And Maureen experienced a new level of hell as she watched Collins hurt so badly and she could absolutely nothing to help him.


End file.
